The Daily Bluster

And I wonder if you know That I never understood That although you said you’d go Until you did I never thought you would. Empty Chair is my absolute favorite Don McLean song. The song’s lyrics somehow capture heartbreak without being sappy. He sings about steps echoing in an empty room, a whiff of fragrance left behind, an empty chair, and facing another night of silence staring at the moonlight, at shadows that are no longer there. Beautiful lyrics, haunting tune. Best listened to when alone in a half-dark room.  It was said that singer Lori Lieberman heard Don McLean singing this song in a concert, and inspired her to write a poem, which in turn inspired the song “Killing Me Softly With His Song.” (Lori Lieberman recorded the original version of Killing Me softly…) Turns out to be not the case. As Charles Fox, the composer, recounted , "I think it's called an urban legend. It really didn't happen that way. Norman Gimbel and I wrote that ...

Much have been said about the world ending in 2012, because of that Mayan calendar . However, scientists have discovered an extended Mayan calendar that doesn’t stop at 2012. So if you are planning to attend (or hold) an end-of-the-world-party this December, you might want to rethink that.  It turns out that the Mayan calendar extends further than 2012; and, like all calendars, it really has no limit on the number of years it can count. The Mayan calendar has its own units of counting the passage of time, its own “cycles,” that would be comparable to our days, months, or years. For example, the current Mayan “cycle,” or baktun (a cycle approximately 394 years long) , will end this year. However, it is a repeating cycle, much like our years, decades, and so on. So there is a good chance that a new baktun shall begin again. (image is from here ) In any case, there are scientists that had already questioned the accuracy of the conversion of dates from the Mayan...